(CNN) – While a Senate deal may be in the works, a key White House meeting is on hold. Still, government workers have received a reduced paycheck that reflects the furloughs, unemployment claims have skyrocketed, government-affiliated businesses are scrambling to stay afloat, states are dipping into their rainy-day funds. Oh, and markets are extremely nervous as the debt limit deadline is just three days away. Now, it’s getting serious.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his counterpart, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell appear closer to a deal. After a morning of negotiations, both Senate leaders expressed optimism that a deal is in the works. Reid called negotiations with McConnell “constructive,” adding that he’s “optimistic that we will reach an agreement.” McConnell said he “echo[s]” Reid’s remarks.

But until the hands shake, the clock keeps ticking.

Because momentum has increased, a meeting between President Obama and top House and Senate leaders was supposed to take place at the White House this afternoon has been postponed “to allow leaders in the Senate time to continue making important progress towards a solution.

Reid, President Barack Obama and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi continue to demand that any proposal reopen the government and lift the debt ceiling with no strings attached.

Meanwhile, Maine Republican Susan Collins, continues to work with a bipartisan group of Senators on a plan. The framework of her proposal would lift the debt ceiling until 2014, fund the government until March and postpone a tax on medical devices.

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia, who is part of the Collins group, sounded an optimistic tone Monday morning saying “we’re 70%, 80% there.” He said they have a template and leadership needs to finalize the details, including how much Congress is going to allocate to fund the government.

Wondering about what happened to President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner, who appeared to be close to a deal last week? Those talks fell apart Saturday morning when the President rejected Boehner’s plan to lift the debt limit for only six weeks.

The top financial officials from around the world gathered in Washington over the weekend. And they were nervous about the U.S. inaction.

Christine Lagarde, head of the International Monetary Fund, said Saturday the consequences of a failure to raise the debt limit would be dire for economies around the world.

"You know, I've just spent the last two days with representatives of about 188 countries around the world. I wouldn't say they are confident. I would say they are concerned, and they are very anxious to see this crisis resolved, because they know it's going to impact on their economy," Lagarde told CNN’s Richard Quest at an Institute of International Finance conference in Washington.

Protestors gathered Sunday at the World War II Memorial to protest its closure caused by the shutdown. Texas Senator Ted Cruz, whose demands to defund the president’s health care law was largely responsible for the shutdown, spoke at the event as did former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Cruz said the closure of the memorial was a political ploy.

The rally, billed as the "Million Vet March on the Memorials," drew far fewer than a million people and evolved into a protest that resembled familiar tea party events from 2009, with yellow "Don't Tread On Me" flags throughout the crowd and strong anti-Obama language from the podium and the audience. And one speaker said the President should “put the Quran down,” implying that Obama is Muslim.

The state of New York dug into its own coffers to reopen the Statue of Liberty. New York state will pay $61,600 a day over the next several days from its tourism budget. Cuomo determined that the financial commitment was well worth it because of the economic gain to New York the 10,000 daily tourists bring to the state and local businesses.

People visit Utah to ski and visit its national parks. Their closure was too much for the state, so the state government is stepping in and filling the federal government’s void. Utah has reopened eight national parks. It will pay the National Park Service up to $166,572 per day to do so.

A local charity in Calvert County, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, DC is feeding the furloughed. Thirty percent of the county’s residents are government employees and the local group End Hunger in Calvert County is distributing food to furloughed workers at a local food bank.

soundoff(54 Responses)

tom l

@Ol Yeller
You do realize that every single post you make is a liberal talking point. My goodness. And since I'm a libertarian, it's pretty ahrd for me to get talking points. Since I actually have positions from both dems (gay marriage, abortion, mainly social) and repubs (smaller govt – although they don't really believe that either) and some from neither (foreign policy where we have a president today that is just as meddling as Bush was) I can say that I do think for myself.

And since the repubs are so fractured now according to you, how would one get talking points if repubs can't agree on anything?

Some day you will realize that neither dems nor repubs care about you whatsoever and just want your vote. But until that day, continue to spew away.

October 14, 2013 12:56 pm at 12:56 pm |

curious

The tea party doing what they are good at.Destroying the country.

October 14, 2013 12:56 pm at 12:56 pm |

Amarjeet

It is time to refer to Supreme Court if salaries and other benefits of Congress members and others are legal during shutdown of governance when they fail to function?

October 14, 2013 03:13 pm at 3:13 pm |

Nodack

I say let the people vote if they want to continue the shutdown or not. The only people that would vote for shutting the government down would be the Tea Party extremists and there certainly isn't enough of them to have any effect on the outcome.

We don't negotiate with terrorists or kidnappers, so why are we letting an extremist fringe group shut down America?